“But what good is free will if we can’t have principles?” asked Moses.

“What good is principles without power,” God replied.

“What good is a God without principles?”

“You need both,” God said. “I’ll show you.”

He sent seven plagues down on the Egyptians: Blood and Frogs and Gnats and Swarms of Wild Beasts, and Murrain and Boils and Hail. Yet Pharoah hardened his heart. He would not let the Israelites go free.

“Three more plagues will do it.” God told Moses. “The last one is a killer.”

Moses wondered why the Egyptian people should suffer for Pharoah’s principles, but he remained silent.

from From the Coffee House of Jewish Dreamers:Poems on the Weekly Torah Portion